


things surpassing strange

by Anonymous



Category: Vinland Saga (Manga)
Genre: Adultery, Brother/Brother Incest, Dialogue Heavy, F/M, M/M, Period Typical Attitudes, Polyamory Negotiations, Sibling Incest, in the most awkward way possible, not the finest morals on display here from anyone
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-01
Updated: 2019-12-01
Packaged: 2021-02-25 21:47:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,147
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21622459
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/
Summary: Discussions by day.
Relationships: Atli/Presumable Canon Wife (Vinland Saga), Torgrim/Atli (Vinland Saga)
Comments: 4
Kudos: 6
Collections: Anonymous





	things surpassing strange

**Author's Note:**

> Follows [the other side of paradise](https://archiveofourown.org/works/21575611) and preceding two works.
> 
> Trying to keep this historically accurate to period attitudes and laws regarding the position wifey is in, so cheating on the husband's side figures here as more of an inconvenience than a betrayal, as marriage is a transactional arrangement no matter how much you might love your kids.
> 
> Other warnings: discussing the possibility of Atli's kids someday repeating the incest thing, and a vague allusion to the natural concerns one would have upon finding out the father of your children is having an incestuous affair, but both are rejected as possibilities.

"I think she might be noticing." There's no question of who _she_ is, nor of what she might have noticed.

"Of course she isn't. No one else ever has. Haven't we had enough practice hiding it?"

"You've been leaving marks," Atli says, casting a look at him that doesn't quite manage to be reproachful. "It's like you want her to notice."

Torgrim scoffs. "You've been going round with marks for twenty years. Everybody picks those up, it doesn't have to mean anything."

"It's different when you're married." Atli rubs self-consciously at the back of his left shoulder, for all it's covered up now. "You wouldn't understand how hard it is hiding things from someone, when you're that close."

"Oh, wouldn't I?"

"You know what I mean." They generally always know what the other means by now, and Atli's tone says he in turn knows what Torgrim means by misunderstanding.

"Where is she, anyway?" Torgrim checks around as if expecting to see her pop out from behind a post.

"Helping at her parents' place. Not enough hands. She took the kids with her." Atli keeps passing the fish from his bucket over to his brother to be layered in the bucket of salt. He's checking to see they've been deboned, and every now and then he picks up a knife to finish one that hasn't been gutted properly. It's not a two-person job, and neither of them mentions that. "She knows they make you tense."

"I've never left a mark you didn't like having," Torgrim says, starting to sulk.

"That's not the point. We don't have our own tent to ourselves anymore. Don't you remember we had to leave home to get that?"

"She's just a woman. What can she do even if she does notice?"

"She'd need to explain her reasons to the divorce witnesses at the very least. You were always so nervy about my reputation. You don't have to throw all that away just because you're jealous now."

"I said I'd share, I didn't say I'd like it." But Torgrim gives him a quick kiss, and Atli puts a fishy hand over his brother's salty one. They never argue for long. "Fine, if you're so sure. You've got to stop enjoying it so much when I leave them, though. You know I can't say no to you."

"I've never known you to have trouble with that. Anyway, the kids'll be old enough to notice things soon." He looks to Torgrim, suddenly anxious. "We really do have to be even more careful then, love."

Hearing the word spoken by daylight is enough to stun them both for a few moments, after which Atli looks at his brother again, even more anxious. Torgrim makes a dismissive gesture with the most recent fish he's been handed, to show what he thinks of being worried over. "Just teach 'em no one likes a tattletale. You'll have to learn how to boss people someday, Atli."

"I'm not thinking so much about that. I just don't want them...

"What, ending up like us?"

"If you have to put it that directly. I don't, no."

This time Torgrim is the one to give him a look. "Never did us any harm."

"Well, but for _my_ children. I barely remember our parents."

"Not surprising," Torgrim says indifferently. "They weren't that memorable."

"You were my hero," Atli says. "I just followed you, mostly. Did whatever you did. Never cared when I was scolded unless it was you doing it."

"Right, you'd put on your special little heartbroken face." Torgrim mimes a trembling lower lip.

"That was real heartbreak!"

"And when did I ever scold you unless you needed it?"

"Once or twice, I think you might have," Atli says, grinning at him. "But I'm sure I've done the same, now—" he checks himself quickly— "now I have the children to deal with."

If Torgrim notices, he doesn't say anything. Instead he returns to the subject of their parents, without much apparent interest. "They were always busy. Never much to show for it. I couldn't tell you anything much about them myself."

"I'm not saying I regret it," Atli says with a shrug. "But it must have come between me and them—what the two of us had. Dad asked me once what I was always thinking about. I was fourteen then. I told him a girl and he asked me which one. I could hardly tell him his other son was the most gorgeous thing I'd ever laid eyes on and we'd been screwing out in the woods ever since it got warm enough."

"That's the spring we were trying to work out how to...?"

"That was it. Nothing on my mind but you. I pointed into a crowd passing by and said, 'That one.'" I couldn't have told you the next day what color her hair was, and I think he knew. He didn't ask me again."

"You should've let me handle that," Torgrim says. "Where was I? I don't remember spending a second apart that first year."

"No, we were trying to be less obvious. You told me we'd do everything apart during the day. I think it lasted a week."

"You should have called for me. Or sent me to him after, to straighten things out. Of course," Torgrim adds, after thinking for a moment, "I couldn't think about anything but you. Might have made things worse."

"I just want my children to have a few more memories of me," says Atli. "It can't happen that often, anyway. The way it did with us. They're not as close as we always were."

"They'll go screwing around in the village when the time comes, then." Torgrim gestures to indicate the outside world using another fish, this one half-salted, sending an arc of salt onto the floor in a vague half-circle. "You'll have just as much trouble."

"At least then they won't be distracted at home, too, like we were. There can't possibly be as much trouble when you can lock them in at night." Atli stops his work, and turns to look at his brother. "Come to think of it, why weren't we ever locked in?"

"You never noticed? I had to snap that latch three times before Dad gave up fixing it. It's a wonder we didn't got robbed blind."

"They shouldn't have had their own room in the back." Atli shakes his head in disapproval and gets back to the fish. "It was just poor planning. Although we were always the worst sneaks in the village."

"Horny little monsters." Torgrim chuckles fondly. "Well, if you're that set on keeping yours from it, you'll know what to look for at least."

"I don't see how they could be as crazy as we were. Mostly me, of course. You kept so cool about everything."

"Now, just a minute," Torgrim begins as the door swings open.

"Sweetheart!" Atli says, loudly, jumping up.

"It's a nice day out," his wife says, a little acidly. "Lots of people who might be passing by the door."

"I was walking into _walls_ over you and you know it," Torgrim hisses.

Atli digs a knee into him, hard. "Let me help you with that," he says to his wife, crossing the room to help her set down the heavy bucket of already-salted fish. Torgrim remains where he is, glowering at their backs.

"Gytha's boy waited until the last minute to tell her he's moving in with his new wife's family," she says, in answer to the unasked question. "Now they've got too much food stored and not enough money coming in next year. I thought it was worth it."

"A good idea," Atli says into the yawning void the house has become.

"Why don't you go fetch the children from my parents," she adds to her brother-in-law. "I couldn't carry this and watch them at the same time." A frantic shooing motion from Atli is the only thing that sends Torgrim out, with one last look of resentment as he closes the door too roughly.

"Some men at least pick a slave to keep as a mistress," she says to Atli, her tone even. "They _have_ to be polite to the lady of the house."

Atli's face is white, but there's no surprise as he looks sideways at her, busying himself at the fireplace even though there's nothing to be done there. "I'll talk to him," he says, very quietly. "He's used to being in charge."

"I'm sure. He's friendly enough when he's in his other mood, at least."

"It hurts his pride. Knowing you see him like that."

"That, and my making a cuckold of him."

Atli hunches over, shifting one of the stones that surrounds the fire pit. His hands are going to leave fish remnants on it that will crackle uselessly when they light the fire tonight. He seems to be struggling for words.

"That's how you both see it, isn't it? I'm the latecomer here."

Atli swallows convulsively. "We've never said..."

"You're a dutiful man, Atli. In many ways. It's part of why I came to live here. My father didn't think he should accept a marriage offer from a household that was caring for a mental deformity. But I told him a man willing to raise his own brother would never give me cause for divorce."

By now Atli's hands are still and he's dropped any pretense of being busy. He stares into the cold ashes without speaking.

"Now that I may have cause," she continues, "it's forced me to think about things I'd never expected to. You don't have to look like that, I've found a few points in your favor."

She kneels next to the buckets he and Torgrim had left on the floor, doing the full role they'd been splitting. She layers half the circle of the salt bucket with fish before she speaks again.

"First, I know you're capable of fathering children. I wouldn't have thought both things possible, but I carried the evidence myself. Second, it would be my word against that of two men. Although," she adds, "anyone who's seen the two of you with each other lately might be inclined to believe me.

"Third, I don't fancy the idea of trying to fit the children into my parents' home. I don't fancy going back there myself. And I don't fancy having to explain when they get older that their father and uncle were both punished by law for committing incest."

Atli winces at the bluntness of the word. 

"So." She lifts her head from the bucket of fish, facing him full-on. "Is this something indispensable for you, for our family?"

"It's what's kept us both alive this long," he answers, simply, still not turning to look directly at her. 

"I looked around at my own brothers and sisters this afternoon, and I have to confess, it didn't help me understand the two of you any better."

"You couldn't. No one else could. I never meant for anyone to have to try." 

"You can't do without it, then."

"You keep asking about me." He shrugs. "But there's no _me_. Even when he was... like that, it was us. Doing without'd kill one of us, then the other. I don't know which first."

"Well. From what I've seen, it can't be the worst thing that's ever been done to you. Nor the worst thing you've done. He can work some of the time now, which is more than I'd expected. And he keeps you home. As long as you promise—" she gives him a hard look— "the children will never be dragged into it. In any way."

"Of course," Atli says hastily. "Of course. I'd made my mind up already. I'd never say this to him, but... when I lost him that time, it was everything at once. Brother and..." He coughs uncomfortably, not able to get the word out. "Well, I just couldn't let them go through that. I could hardly stand looking at him some days, being reminded of it every second."

"And so you had to get married."

"That wasn't entirely what..." His hands tense around another stone, and he turns at last to give her a squeezed, miserable look. "There's been two good things have come about since we had to come home, and they wound up like this. I never could plan things like my brother could."

"I was making my own calculations when I came here," she says, holding his gaze with neither judgment nor compassion. "And I'm willing to change them now, if that's the easiest way forward. I don't need to learn anything more about who's carrying the burden of _ergi_." 

"Thank you," Atli says, hoarsely. "I mean it. There's not many women would..."

"Just promise me you'll fix that door. It's been through far too much in its life."


End file.
